Safer Skies

NASA research found that pilot fatigue can impair decision making after only 8.5 hours of flight time at night. Yet Canadian pilots are expected to remain alert for twice that time. We’re helping the Air Canada Pilots Association change that, so that our pilots—and their passengers—remain safe.

The Air Canada Pilots Association (ACPA) has been a vocal advocate calling on the Government of Canada, Minister Garneau, and Transport Canada to create new regulations that would limit flight duty times to those in similar jurisdictions like the US and Europe, making flying safer for all Canadians.

We undertook a comprehensive GR and PR campaign to convince Transport Canada to amend Canada’s outdated aviation fatigue regulations. While the GR team worked directly on government outreach, the PR team launched the Safer Skies campaign which featured a website (saferskies.ca and cielplussur.ca), out-of-home print, targeted digital advertising, social media and earned media.

The Safer Skies advocacy and awareness campaign employed precision targeting to deliver tailored messages to key political and government decision makers, in addition to targeting frequent flyers and pilots. We designed creative collateral that was simple and compelling, relying on an illustrative approach that was visually striking (opting to avoid of pictures of sleepy pilots.)

Ongoing tactics included a survey of pilot’s experience with fatigue, refreshed social media content and videos that brought the campaign to life – with ongoing GR support in Ottawa. The campaign was recently featured in major stories on Canada’s most-watched networks: CBC’s the National and CTV’s W5.